Vidal Blanc
On February 16, we did our first vertical tasting with food pairing of 2024. This is probably the white grape you will find at most wineries in Maryland. So many wineries are growing vidal because it grows so well here. It was originally created as a hybrid in France but is no longer allowed to be used there because of their regulations being a lot stricter over there as compared to here in the United States. It can withstand a lot of cold so year after year, we get fairly consistent, good vidal from most vineyards. It can be made in all ranges of sweetness and typically has notes of citrus, grapefruit, honey, apricot, pineapple, flowers and minerality. That checks a lot of different boxes for options of aromas and flavors so it can be a pretty complex, interesting white wine to get into. You will get medium to high acidity, medium plus alcohol and medium body in most cases. For this tasting, we had vidal blancs from Port of Leonardtown Winery, Crow Vineyard, Bull House Winery and Basignani Winery. We did two bottle reviews in the podcast section of this site for Port of Leonardtown's and Basignani's so check those out for full detail on both those wineries and tasting notes on the wines! For the food, we had tempura shrimp with sweet & sour sauce, chicken, pesto and mozzarella crostinis, pasta primavera with roasted broccoli and mushrooms, bleu cheese olives, steamed mussels, goat cheese and local orange marmalade topped puff pastry, sweet cinnamon apple topped puff pastry, tzatziki, cucumbers, guacamole, pita chips and some extra mozzarella and goat cheese. We started with Port of Leonardtown's vidal blanc. This was the dryest of the four with pronounced aromas of grapefruit, apple, peach and pineapple. On the palate we got stone fruit, orange and some nice minerality. This wine was unoaked with medium acidity. The food options were mostly going to pair with varietals that had a little bit of sweetness so this one really only paired well with the crostinis, mozzarella cheese and guacamole but those were pretty great together. The next two wines were off dry and Ian and I actually disagreed with which one was sweeter so you decide! I thought the Bull House was dryer so I'll start with that one. It had aromas of white concord grape and white flowers. The palate had a lot of green apple and melon and the wine was off-dry. That little bit of sweetness and the green fruits made this match really well with the shrimp, pasta, mussels and tzatziki. The vidal from Crow was also off-dry with floral rose and lavender aromas plus some minerality. On the palate we got lime and pineapple. This one also paired really well and maybe even a little better with the mussels, plus the pasta, tzatziki and cucumbers. Basignani's vidal was semi-sweet so it was the only one to pair with food items that were really sweet. We got aromas of lilies, peach and melon and pineapple and peach on the palate. Acidity was medium. The foods it paired best with was the shrimp, bleu cheese olives, goat cheese and apple pie puff pastries. All in all this was a great tasting getting to know what is probably Maryland's most popular white grape. I think most interestingly, this was one tasting where all four wines were very different so go get your hands on whichever one (or more) sounds like it's got the flavors, sweetness and aromas you are in to.
